Kenny Clarke

About Kenny Clarke

Along with Max Roach, drummer Kenny Clarke is one of the key formal architects of the rhythmic foundation of bebop. While still playing with the swing ensembles of Edgar Hayes and Roy Eldridge in the mid-1930s, Clarke began deconstructing the traditional time-keeping role of the trap set to include more emphasis on the ride cymbal and accents. Clarke anchored the house band at Minton’s Playhouse, the birthplace of modern jazz, where he played with Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and others. Clarke recorded widely, with Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins, Sidney Bechet, Louis Armstrong, and Benny Carter, among others, and in the early ‘50s helped found the Modern Jazz Quartet, the progenitors of “third stream,” which emphasized jazz’s ties to classical music. In the late ‘50s Clarke moved to France where he lived and worked the rest of the life.

HOMETOWN
Pittsburgh, PA, United States
BORN
January 9, 1914
GENRE
Jazz

Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada